


being a hero

by WattStalf



Series: A Not-So-Blue Planet [2]
Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Kink Meme, Major canon divergence, but not kinky, of course that's the nature of the au, part of a series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurie's decisions are made for her by her mother; her life, her career, and even her relationships. She follows along because she does not know what else to do, and tries to make what life she can for herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	being a hero

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my AU where Jon dies and never becomes Dr. Manhattan. In the kink meme, it was proposed that Hollis would not become as disillusioned and might help Nelson with Crimebusters. I figured Eddie definitely wouldn't have been invited in that case, and his absence combined with everyone's respect for Hollis meant the group would be a bit more successful.  
> The idea of Laurie ending up with Adrian is borrowed from this story: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5629720 which you should totally read cos it's great. I liked the idea of Laurie ending up with him if Jon wasn't around, and I do think that there's a strong chance she might have been more attracted to him.

Tonight was, according to her mother, one of the most important night's of Laurie's career. She didn't doubt that it was important, but she doubted that what she did could ever really be considered a career. Somehow, dressing up in a costume and fighting crime, all for no pay, didn't feel like the sort thing anyone would call a career.

But that was what Sally had done, and she insisted that Laurie follow in her footsteps. Of course, she seemed to forget that she had done it to further her modeling and acting career, and that Laurie had never done either of those things. In fact, Laurie hadn't really done much of anything besides training to be a hero, and she was sixteen years old.

Now, some of Sally's former teammates were forming a new vigilante team, and Laurie had been invited to participate. It was the first meeting of the Crimebusters, and the real beginning of her career as a costumed adventurer. Needless to say, Sally was a bit more excited than she was.

“Are you sure you don't want me to come in with you?” she asked.

“Mom, _please_ ,” said Laurie, groaning. “I can handle this myself. I don't need you holding my hand!”

“Oh, Laurie, you know that's not what this is about,” her mother replied, rolling her eyes. “It'd just be nice to get to see your Uncle Hollis and Uncle Nelson for a little bit. You know Nelly's _so_ excited about all of this.”

“This is a meeting, not a Minutemen reunion,” Laurie said. “We're not going in there together, or I'm not going.”

Again, Sally rolled her eyes. “Okay, dear, okay. Always so dramatic! But we're going to stay after when I come to pick you up, in that case. I'm not just going to  _not_ say hello to either of them.”

“What _ever_ , can I please just go _in_ already?” She didn't actually want to go in at all, but anything was better than sitting out here while her mother got misty eyed over days gone by.

“Yes, yes, go on already.” Sally waved her off, and she got out of the car, heading inside Nelson Gardner's mansion.

~X~

From what she heard, the idea had been entirely Nelson's. He had decided one day that he wanted to try to recreate the Minutemen with the newer generation, and had contacted Hollis Mason, the former Nite Owl, to inquire after how to contact his successor. Hollis had been enthusiastic about the idea- or maybe he had just known that Nelson would need a helping hand- and offered to help lead from the inside.

He wouldn't be returning as Nite Owl, but he would help with organization and strategy, and secretly Laurie knew that it was better if he were a part of it. She thought Nelson looked a little ridiculous, still trying to fight crime at his age, and was sure others thought the same, but people respected Hollis quite a bit. With him helping out, things were sure to turn out a lot better than if Nelson was all on his own.

Laurie entered the room, looking around at all in attendance. There was Nelson, in his Captain Metropolis costume that was starting to look a little snug, and Hollis in regular street clothes. There was who Laurie assumed with the new Nite Owl, in a costume just about as dweeby as Hollis' old one, and someone she assumed, based on what she was read in the papers, was Rorschach, who unsettled her quite a bit.

Finally, there was someone she had seen a lot of in the papers- Ozymandias. He was young, though she didn't know exactly how young, and incredibly good looking. She had always thought he was too damn pretty to risk getting his face beat up every day, but, then again, people probably thought that about her mother, and maybe they even thought that about her, even though she thought she barely resembled Sally.

Seeing him in person was a different matter entirely, and she hadn't expected him to be just as good looking as the pictures she had seen of him. All in all, he was the most interesting one there, and as the meeting commenced, it was hard to keep her eyes off of him. She hadn't interacted with many people growing up, considering her seriously her mother took training her, and she'd never even come close to having a boyfriend before or anything like that.

At some point during the meeting, he caught her looking and gave her a smile. She looked away quickly, face burning from the embarrassment of getting caught, but then she looked back to return his smile. The rest of the meeting passed without much event, just Hollis and Nelson explaining different strategies they might try. At the very end, they were encouraged to talk amongst themselves and get to know each other well so that they would be able to work better together.

After much internal debate, Laurie managed to work up the courage to approach Ozymandias, giving him a shy smile. “Hi,” she said, because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

“Hello,” he replied, friendly enough. There was no need for introductions when they already knew who each other were, but she couldn't think of anything else to talk to him about. Still, she didn't want the conversation to be over just yet. Unfortunately, all she could think of was small talk, but he seemed to have no problem following along with that. He really was a friendly guy, and she found that she liked him quite a bit.

They had not been talking for long when Sally had come in, announcing herself theatrically as always, still desperately clinging to the limelight she had lost. She gave Laurie a mortifying, knowing smile before walking over to Hollis and Nelson, and she continued to look over for the rest of the time Laurie talked with Ozymandias.

~X~

“That blondie sure was a cutie,” said Sally as she and Laurie drove back home.

“He's alright, I guess,” Laurie mumbled, blushing. She had seen the way her mom looked at the two of them, and she knew what was coming. This was so not something she wanted her mom to be involved in.

“You know, if you're interested in him, it might not be a bad thing,” her mom continued, much to her horror. “I know that I've not let you date before, but you're getting older now, and if it were someone like him, I think I could trust the two of you together. And just think of what the papers would have to say about it!”

“Mom, that's crazy!” she protested, her face turning red. “I mean, I hardly know him, and you're already planning the wedding, just because you think it'll get me good publicity! You know, I bet he's older than me than he looks, and you're just encouraging me to date him, and that's so-”

“Please, Laurie, I thought we talked about you not needing to be so melodramatic.” Sally gave an exasperated sigh. “Forgive me for trying to have a little fun talking with my daughter. We never have been able to talk about boys together before.”

“Not my fault,” she muttered, but either her mother didn't here her or she pretended not to.

~X~

Laurie had been raised with rather mixed views about men. On the one hand, her mother had never kept it a secret that she liked to flaunt what she had and that flaunting that had been useful to her in life. She taught Laurie how to walk and talk with confidence like she had, and told her just how to act to leave men wanting more. She was taught to embrace her sex appeal, but there had been another side to it.

Sally had always encouraged Laurie to tempt men from a distance, to make herself attractive but never make herself available, not even for a moment. She was not supposed to get near any boys, her age or otherwise, and she wasn't supposed to pursue romantic relationships. Her mother never outright said it, but she didn't have to; Laurie wasn't supposed to trust men.

She was sure most of that stemmed from her ex-husband; Larry had never been a nice man, for as long as Laurie could remember, and he had never been much of a father (which, she had her doubts about that anyway). When they had finally divorced, Laurie had been more relieved than anything, knowing that she wouldn't have to see him anymore, and it wouldn't surprise her if he was why her mother had so many issues with men.

Still, it didn't make sense why she would teach Laurie to follow in her footsteps and train to be a sex symbol, all while teaching her the dangers of getting too close to men- though what those dangers were, Laurie didn't know. Sally never would go into specifics about them.

Now, however, she was encouraging Laurie to pursue a man, and it was entirely for publicity, no matter what she may say. She thought they could be some sort of vigilante power couple, and Laurie knew there was no way it was a coincidence when Hollis began to pair them up exclusively for patrols.

~X~

She and Ozymandias got to know each other during those times- he revealed his name to be Adrian- but they never really had much to talk about. They didn't have much in common, but sometimes she would mention that she had liked animals growing up, and he always had a fun fact to share with her. She liked those conversations, and she still thought he was plenty attractive, but knowing that her mother was trying to force them together made it hard to really like him.

It was a shame, because he was handsome and friendly and the perfect man in every regard, but her heart wasn't in her pursuit of him. But she still kept up the pursuit, because it was what her mother told her to do, and she had always kept up with what her mother told her to do. She didn't really know how to do anything else.

~X~

Their relationship began suddenly and surprisingly, and the first time Adrian asked her on a date, she hadn't seen it coming. She had tried several tricks to catch his attention, and he had seemed completely oblivious to all of her womanly charms, to the point that she had begun to wonder if she really hadn't inherited anything from her mother besides her eyes after all.

But one day, he asked her to dinner, and she was quick to accept. Even knowing that everything between them had been forced by Sally, she was still eager. She had never been on a date before, and she thought it could be fun; she didn't really have any friends either, and she would have jumped at the chance to spend time with anyone.

Once they had gone on their first date, it continued, and then he asked her- actually _asked her_ \- to be his girlfriend, and she tried not to laugh at how old fashioned it was as she accepted. Her mother seemed more excited than she was, and soon enough, the papers got a hold of it, and it was just what Sally wanted: Ozymandias and Silk Spectre, the super hero power couple.

~X~

Their romantic relationship was not much different than their friendship had been. Laurie didn't really know what dating was like, having never done it before, but she thought that there should have been more to it than what they had. It wasn't bad, of course; he turned out to be an incredibly wealthy man, and their dates and the presents he gave her were extravagant, but she still didn't know what she was supposed to talk to him about, and his physical affection left some to be desired.

He waited precisely until the third date after she had agreed to be his girlfriend to kiss her, and from that point on would kiss her once at the end of each night, sweet and chaste, and that was it. Occasionally he would hold her hand, but he seemed entirely disinterested in putting the moves on her, and she supposed her mother would be glad of that, but she was a healthy young woman and she wanted more from him.

But he was all she had, and she didn't know how to break things off or if she even wanted to over such a thing, not when he was still the only real friend she had. She had not really gotten close to any of the other Crimebusters when she had been made to spend so much time with him.

Despite whatever differences they had, they stayed together for years, even when things began to grow rocky in the group. Nelson was not getting any younger and he couldn't keep up with them, despite insisting that he could, and Hollis grew frustrated trying to convince his friend not to do anything reckless. Dan grew more distant as he and Rorschach's partnership seemed to falter, and the latter soon stopped showing up to meetings at all. From what she heard about him in the news, he was acting more erratically and solving problems more violent, and she figured it was better that he was gone; he had always given her the creeps anyway.

But the big surprise came when Adrian told her that he planned to make his identity public and retire. He said that he couldn't see heroes being welcome in the world for much longer, and didn't want to over stay his welcome. Not only that, but he felt that he had new ways in which he could save the world, ways that involved his business and, someday, politics. Laurie wasn't sure how to react to his revelation and simply offered her support, but said that she would not be able to quit any time soon. Sally simply wouldn't have it, and Laurie didn't know what else she would do.

Realizing that was difficult. She had spent her entire life training for something she hated, and now that she was an adult, able to make her own decisions, she couldn't choose anything else. There was nothing else that she knew, and it was just like her relationship with Adrian; she had been shoved into it by her mother so early on that she couldn't find her way out.

~X~

Two years later, when the Keene Act was passed and it was made illegal to serve as a vigilante- all heroes had to be registered with the government, and as far as Laurie knew, there was only one like this. Some man who called himself the Comedian who had been a very temporary member of the Minutemen once upon a time that no one she knew liked, but no one had ever explained to her why.

Laurie had no plans to try to register with the government, and when she told Adrian of this, he replied that he had an idea for what she could do now. When she asked him what he had in mind, he replied with a marriage proposal, and she had to accept. Sally was overjoyed and took complete control over planning the wedding, and Laurie sat back and let her. She wouldn't have known how to plan a wedding anyway.

But as the date drew closer, Sally began to act just a little bit off in ways that were barely noticeable to Laurie. She seemed almost nervous around her daughter, and it was not until the night before the wedding, when they were on their way home from the rehearsal dinner, that she found out why.

“Is there anyone else?” asked Sally, completely out of the blue.

“Wha-? Mother, of course there isn't!” Laurie replied, stunned. “I don't see when I would have had time to meet anyone else!”

“I just wanted to ask. You know you can tell me these things.” She sighed. “I just...do you love him?”

That question was not an easy one to answer, even though she knew it should be. Adrian had been a constant in her life for so long that she couldn't imagine a life without him, and he made every effort to create romance for her. They went on nice dates, he bought her presents, he followed all the rules of being a perfect boyfriend, but for all the romance he tried to create, she never felt any that was natural. She knew that if she were going to marry anyone, it was good that it was him, but love was another matter entirely.

“I do,” she finally answered, knowing it was too late for her mother to believe her.

“You need to make sure you really do. I mean really, really love him, and not anyone else.” There was a look of sadness in Sally's eyes that had not been present there since Laurie had been a child. “If you're not marrying for love, there's no point in marrying, and I don't want you to miss out with being with someone you really do love.”

Where was all of this coming from? It was the most genuine and selfless thing she could remember hearing her mother say, but something about the way she said it made her think that she was thinking of her own experiences. Her marriage hadn't been a happy one, and now she was trying to make sure her daughter didn't go through the very same thing.

“Well,” said Laurie at last, “it's kinda late to be thinking about that.”

~X~

On their wedding night, they made love for the first time, and it was good, but he was much more distant than she had expected him to be, and she couldn't help but think that it was missing something.

~X~

Adrian kept his promise to go into politics, and in 1980, Richard Nixon lost his first presidential election since his defeat at the hands of Kennedy. In 1981, President Veidt was inaugurated, and he and his wife moved into the White House. Laurie was the First Lady now, and while her husband did his job communicating with whoever was in the Kremlin at the time, negotiating and trying to create a stable, peaceful alliance, she kept busy with her own projects.

She advocated heavily for animal rights, and several shelters were built in her name due to the donations her charities produced. She was a good First Lady and the people of the United States loved her. Sally was proud of her in her own way; she was not the daring, sexy superlady that she had tried to train her to be, but she was somebody important now, and that was all she had really wanted for her daughter.

Laurie knew that political marriages tended to become strained, but things did not change much for them once Adrian was in office. He was attentive when he could be, gave her his artificial romance, and remained a good friend and a distant lover. She supposed she must love him, at least a little bit, if only for the effort he put in, not only with her but with everything. He was doing good, and she was proud of him for that, and did whatever good she could do in her projects as First Lady.

It wasn't much, but for the first time in her life, she felt like a hero and found that she didn't dislike the feeling at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Some other things you might have noticed that were different: Nelson doesn't die in 74, Hollis never published Under the Hood, so Laurie never had a way to find out about the attempted rape of her mother, so on and so forth.


End file.
